


Aftermath

by IfOnlyItWasCanon



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Coping, Family Feels, Gen, Implied/Referenced Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham, Kinda?, Overenthusiastic Use of the Enter Key, POV Molly Graham, Past Molly Graham/Will Graham, Post-TWOTL
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-19 23:35:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10650405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IfOnlyItWasCanon/pseuds/IfOnlyItWasCanon
Summary: After her husband takes a swan dive into the Atlantic with a serial killer, Molly Graham struggles to understand who he really was.





	Aftermath

Molly Graham had grown to hate the cameras. She had grown to hate interviews, and talk shows, and curly red hair. She had grown to hate the tabloids, and their sensational headlines; the true-crime blogs; the never ending news reports that rehashed every detail of the crime scene, every rumor and conspiracy theory, every new bit of evidence.

But she couldn't turn away.

She felt like she was slowing down on the highway to watch a car crash, the flaming wreckage of the life she thought that she'd lived, the man she thought she'd known. _The man she did know_ , she told herself. She went to interviews, she went on talk shows. She did her best to ignore Freddie Lounds. And she swore to the heavens above that Will Graham was not the man people claimed he was. "My husband" she said, "was a good man. He worked for the FBI, for God's sake. My husband loved dogs, and loved my kid. You think he would do this to me? To his family? You think he loved the man who tried to have us killed?"

And she'd go home, and replay that day over and over again in her head. That day that ruined her carefully maintained, happy life. _How bad is it gonna be if you stay here and read about the next one?_ she’d asked. _If you stay here and there's more killing, maybe it'd sour this place for you. High Noon and all that._ Jack Crawford had come asking for her husband’s sanity, and she’d given it up on a silver platter. Will went with it because Will was a good man, she told herself. He couldn’t stand to see people hurt.

_He was a good man._

_If he was a good man, then why wasn’t he here for her and Walter?_

_If he was a good man, then where the hell was he?_

Sometimes, she would read true-crime articles. She hated herself for it, but some part of her felt desperate for some information, any information, on the man that she had loved. She would read late into the night, opening a CNN article titled 'What Happened To Francis Dolarhyde? What We Know About His Death' at nine and finally closing some fluff shocker story with the headline 'Murder Husbands: The Expose!' at two in the morning. One article eloquently stated, "The nature of the relationship between these two men has always been difficult to categorize." An author at a crime watch website wrote, "After the murder and mutilation of Randall Tier, it would certainly not be a stretch to suggest that Will Graham took after his psychiatrist in regards to his darker urges." "Blood spatter analysts confirm Graham and Lecter stood together before leaping over cliff” chimes in another.

Molly can’t stand it. It's like a hundred voices screaming at her, telling her that she was wrong, so wrong about this man. She told herself that they were wrong. Because they had to be. They didn’t know her husband, not like she did.

She'd drive her son to school and ignore the whispers and pitying glances of the other parents. Life would go on.

Once, Wally came home from school with a bloody nose and a day's detention. He'd been in a fight. Wally was not a fighter. He had a kind heart and no taste for cruelty. "God," Molly had asked, "what happened?" Wally looked at the ground, avoided her eyes. "Walter, please." He'd looked up at her. "Kids at school were saying things. About... about Dad. About you."

Molly felt her heart freeze in her chest.

She always knew, on some level, that Wally knew. He saw the news. He read magazines. One day, late after work, when Wally was asleep on the couch, she'd found an article left open on the computer. Tattlecrime. NEW FORENSIC EVIDENCE SHOWS GRAHAM AND LECTER WORKED TOGETHER IN FATAL SEASIDE ENCOUNTER. She knew that children would gossip. But this was not her son's battle to fight. This was not her son's responsibility.

"What did they say, Wally?" she asked, voice barely above a whisper.

"They said..." He hesitated. "They said that Dad was crazy. They said that he liked to kill people. They said-" he took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. "They said that he ran away with... well... you know. They said that he" Wally paused again. "loved him. They said that we were stupid not to see it."

They both stood in silence, until Wally hesitantly spoke again. "Mom... are they..." He looked at her. "Are they right?" Molly opened her mouth, ready to recite her talk show script. Instead, she pulled Wally into a hug, and whispered.

"I don't know, baby. I don't know."

**Author's Note:**

> but seriously imagine you met the guy of your dreams and he's really sweet and sensitive and loves dogs and is great with your kid and then he leaves you for a cannibalistic serial killer who tried to murder him twice and framed him for five (5) counts of homicide  
> 


End file.
